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During his young career, Pete Alonso handled NL East rivals Phillies well. He’s taken it to another level so far this year.
Friday night was another dominant performance. Alonso scored, drove in four runs and made a brilliant play on the field to salvage at least one run as the Mets continued their strong start against the Phillies with an 8-6 win to 30.175 at Citi Field to secure a six- Game to begin household.
The first-rank Mets have now beaten the Phillies seven times in 10 encounters, and in those contests Alonso has five home runs, 17 RBIs and batting .351 with a 1.143 OPS. The last time the two teams met before that latest encounter, Alonso helped the Mets salvage a doubleheader split on May 8 by going deep twice and driving in the nightcap in five runs.
“I haven’t actually changed anything. I feel like I’m playing a little bit better,” Alonso said of his outstanding first two months of the season. “Just having more time and understanding myself better, who I am as a player, that’s kind of helped [me] carry out.”
Friday night, without Alonso’s offensive performance and that big defensive play in the second inning, the Mets (30-17) would have been in trouble. It allowed them to survive the Phillies’ sixth inning by six runs. Alonso drove runs in each of his first three at-bats and was run on purpose in his fourth. He now leads the majors with 45 RBIs and set a Mets record for most RBIs ahead of Memorial Day, breaking Bernard Gilkey’s previous 1996 mark of 44.
“Not a lot of dips and going back and forth not knowing what you’re getting each day. He’s always a seat away,” said manager Buck Showalter. “He’s not concerned with the last shot or the last game. And when he gets a hit and drives the first one in a run, he tries to get another one. I don’t want to say greedy, but he never stops pushing.”
Brandon Nimmo set the tone for the early part of the evening on the first pitch. He hit a routine grounder to stop Bryson Stott, who threw wildly to first base and set off a three-run Mets rally. Twice the Mets scored with flat sacrifice flies to right field, with Nimmo and Starling Marte easily passing Nick Castellanos’ right arm.
Contrast that to the top of the second when a diving Alonso robbed Odubel Herrera of a double and at least one RBI. Carlos Carrasco brought down the defensive jewel by pulling Garrett Stubbs back with a groundout.
The lead grew to 7-0 after Alonso’s two-run homer in the third and his double run scoring in the fourth. It felt like laughter, but the Phillies had other ideas.
They broke through against Carrasco in game six, starting with two well-placed infield hits from Rhys Hoskins and Alec Bohm. Run-scoring singles by Bryce Harper and Castellanos made it a 7-2 game.
Carrasco temporarily recovered by retiring the next two sluggers, but after leading Herrera, Showalter went to his bullpen and Chasen Shreve imploded. He dropped a 1-2 splitter over the middle of the plate and Stubbs parked a three-run homer to the right. 7:0 was suddenly 7:6, and a strong performance by Carrasco looked very different.
“They caught me in the last inning, but you guys saw the game,” said Carrasco, who won for the fifth time this season. “Soft contact right there.”
On Hoskins’ hit, Carrasco jammed his left thumb while diving for the ball, which was one of the reasons Showalter pulled him out on 85 pitches. But afterwards, Carrasco said he felt fine.
“Everything is fine,” said Carrasco.
The final threat to the Phillies came in eighth place when they had runners in second and third place with an out. But Joely Rodriguez beat Stubbs and Seth Lugo was able to get JT Realmuto to pop out to end the inning.
Fittingly, it was Alonso who tracked the ball down in foul territory. He was the impetus for this victory.
